Heatwave

Somewhere in a five by five cheapjack kitchenette bathed in the golden afterglow of south Ishigaki’s four o’clock, Sho feels like he’s losing his mind.

A hack resounds, a bit too wet and foul — the sum of nicotine and ash dust swimming in dried out lungs, and yet Noe makes the sound all too familiar. Home-y. Makes Sho feel disgusting, in a way. Foolish, quixotic, new age disgusting. A feeling only Noe can suborn out of people; a cognizance on details that barely matter — shouldn’t matter. A little bit heart stopping. Brain jagging. Some hippie level of consciousness that turns Sho into someone he’s not. Existential bullshit and all that. Far too sappy and sentimental when he claims his cynical ass is the furthest from that.

“Fuckin’ disgusting.”

The muttered remark hanging between their curled up forms causes the two to look at each other. A corner of a mouth quirks. There’s a variation of deep seated affinity there, dripping with intensity, only exclusive to them. Sho feels like he can’t breathe. A minuscule voice at the back of his head tells him that it’s growing more often. It — the suffocating ardency baring its head when he’s looking at his best friend subsist next to him, gilt-edged and beaming. Lack of oxygen maybe. Feels like his heart is drowning, chasing, beating a thousand per minute.

Balancing his sanity between lithe fingers, he bites down on his lip to keep it from hanging, thirty-two degree air heavy. Weighed with something he still can’t taste properly through the atmosphere — the platonic lines tilting more these days.

“Well, excuse me.” Noe derides, smoke unfurling out of full lips with each vowel, breaking the eye contact. He takes another prolonged drag as a new glazed smile hatches onto his pretty face, regards Sho in a way that makes his stomach tighten.

As always, Sho just watches. No longer poised. Just feels like he’s melting the corners of his lungs off. Feels a little bit too warm. If it’s from the trapped second-hand smoke in the room, or something completely else, he tucks it in for later. Maybe he can try to make some stranded sense of it when he’s drunk enough and feeling more philosophical. But that’s still a big maybe.

Emotions — not something Sho wants to acquaint himself with.

And then there’s Noe.

Kind of fucked up if you ask him — how Noe stays dreamy. Presence almost gleaming against the harsh sunlight and the broken air conditioner leaking suspended somewhere in the room. As dreamy as a starving underground artist living off of cheap cup ramen and teetering to make it big from an unheard town in Okinawa can pull off. No associate degree, no portfolio, just pure talent. All sharp angles and soft sighs, loose change and starry-eyed behavior. Sensual in a way that leaves you gaping.

Sho wavers at the thought.

Noe is imposing. If it’s not his impression, at least his aftertaste is. Stellar in the sheets, roaring through the streets, is what all those wild nights tag him the morning after, and Sho doesn’t doubt the scattered rumors in their circle. Fujisaki is truly an experience. Too bad you’re too wired straight to get your head out of your ass to see that the guy has heart eyes for you — and although he splutters like an idiot every time he hears another version of the same preposterous nonsense, Sho’s smart. At least he thinks he is. Doesn’t really dwell on spineless hearsay like that. That’s the type that makes it harder to breathe. A warmth that he really doesn’t need to reside in his gut in the already sweltering weather.

They’re not like that.

Noe is —

Heretic. Strikingly unorthodox, someone you can’t keep up with if he doesn’t tie you along his waist. Free. Creates his own pace, never bends. Almost his better half. ‘Platonic Soulmate‘. Self-proclaimed as Sho’s missing piece. Talks like some type of modern poet who looks at the world through a contemporary kaleidoscope, or more so a powdered, red rimmed high. Melts you down to the bone if you let ‘im. Always asserts he’s thriving — not starving — because he’s hopeful like that. Full of idealistic purpose and optimism.

Sho is enthralled. And very much head over heels with the idea of the fabled Fujisaki Noe burning his lungs off with him in his shabby kitchen, all sun kissed and sticky with perspiration yet no less magnetizing. And he’s all his to memorize.

Platonically, of course.

He stretches, calico-like and lanky limbed. Makes Sho’s gut burn some type of way. “S’not my fault my body can’t seem to tolerate damn tobacco these days. C’mon, be gentle with me.”

A ceiling fan hangs above their heads, barely passes off a breeze to cut through the hot stuffy air vacuum packed inside the room. It’s suffocating, being this close all of a sudden. Cold beer getting more lukewarm, the barely there condensation drips off of Sho’s hand as he bristles at Noe fighting off another cough itching away at his throat.

The slick of gluey beer clogs up his airways, because the room feels smaller with his best friend stifling a foxy smile. A filter of dry smoke and the afternoon sun forging a reddish mood that Sho can’t swallow around. A little too rosé for his taste. Misplaced in their six years of being each other’s closest confidants. Too brain (read: heart) suffocating for comfort.

“Maybe it’s ’bout time you quit chain smoking,” Sho coolly reaches back around in his sun chair that’s looking misplaced in the compact kitchenette to pluck the stick hanging off of the bleached blonde’s lips – and without as much as a blink, tosses the rat poison between the railing.

The lit cigarette flies straight out of the small gap in the window and lands somewhere in the asphalt below. Fortunately. The petty action is out of place in their lax stupor, Sho too fogged out and distracted to consider the fact that the guy’s room is merely one floor above a saloon that hasn’t been renovated since 1984. Too much discarded and recycled daily paper, middle aged men lying face flat on the sidewalk and Granny Minako’s dead ornamental plants. All that parched fuel during a damn heatwave. Surely a fire hazard — but he’s gotta keep the cool intellectual-esque dialogue. Dread and all that drab for later. “Body’s tryna tell you something, Saki-chan.”

Noe isn’t amused. Has never been a fan of the cool kid character that Sho fancies to wear like some velcro, faux fur vest. Peevishly petty and all too knowing, as if he’s fooling anyone with his charade. Grade A asshole demeanor, the best and worst in the rural pits of Ishigaki — and yet he still finds a way to keep the misanthropic presence around. All shit talk and no grace. Can’t seem to get rid of him even if he wanted to. At least, it’s what he tells himself. Just adores him, is what it is.

It ain’t heart eyes, Noe is convinced. Just fond of him, is all.

“Goddamn it, Sho — you tryna burn my fucking building down?” Noe is quick to flick his toes, hitting his best friend’s neck from his perched spot on the kitchen counter. There’s acid somewhere in his tone, but the hit’s never hard enough to hurt.

“Maybe,” Sho quips, snark-mouthed n’ muggy from all the still, humid air half-circulating within the tenement. His mind’s all steam now. He shoots a dry smirk over to an unamused Noe who’s on his way to light another cigarette. “If it would get you to fucking move, man. I’d dowse. Y’never know, a blaze might spare me from hanging in this dingy fishbowl.”

“Fuck you to hell. Don’t talk shit ’bout my home, dude.” Noe tuts, chucks him the empty cigar box because that was his last stick and his asshole of a best friend just disposed it in an unserious attempt to set his old building on fire. Always the same shit. And he can’t get enough of it. “You gettin’ all saucy on me, eh? When your ass’s pretty much living in your cousin’s shed?”

“Shut up,” Sho grunts. “At least it’s not fifty fucking degrees out there.”

“Air conditioner’s on its last wire, man. Deal with it.” He steals the bottle of lukewarm beer off of Sho’s lax fingers instead and downs it in one stale go to chase the burn tickling his lungs away, follows with an almost quiet huff. “Fucker.”

“C’mon, trash me. Say it louder.”

“Fucker.”

Noe ends up roosting his foot on Sho’s shoulder anyway, gold anklet glimmering in the sun, almost blinding in Sho’s line of sight with the help of the mellow sun rays, casting a refraction that makes them both stop and look.

And Sho, as much as he tries to brush it off, feels a foolish sense of pride.

Noe is still wearing his tag. Never dares to lose it. It doesn’t even matter that he never gave the accent piece in the first place. It’s just Noe and his typical what’s yours is mine, everything is mine mindset that always manages to pull on his last nerve — the irritating piece of shit that he is — but in this moment, Sho can’t find it in himself to see it as anything other than endearing.

It swells, grows fat in Sho’s chest. Something along the edges of claiming, and then Noe looking at him like he knows it.

There’s something warm again. And tight. Somewhere around his chest.

“What?” Noe prods, a teasing hint of a lopsided grin melting onto his face at the sight of Sho’s gaze on him.

In this light, Noe is otherworldly. Lashes thick, lips lush, colored to full saturation from the afternoon light bursting through the grilled window next to where he’s tucked in the sink. Sho notices. Of course he does. There’s something about the guy that sits in your chest if you stare long enough. Tungsten-heavy. Sho scoffs, tries to stomp down the boiling in his stomach when his tongue itches to voice out a Damn, have you always looked this pretty? because that’s gay as hell and he doesn’t need fucking Noe to tell him that. Kills the vibration humming under his skin when his eyes linger longer on those lips that wrap around where his own lips once were. So he opts for something more him.

“You still broke after your old man’s death insurance?” Sho snickers through his teeth, and without hitch, Noe reaches down to whack the back of his head. He’s thankful it’s not the bottle that hits his scalp (it wouldn’t be the first time). Bony fingers pull at his roots, dark hair mused because youngsters these days no longer care about gelled back quiffs. It’s all volume and ocean salt, and grease. The natural kind. He sighs at the sweet burn, of Noe playing with his strands as a congenial afterthought.

“I told ya. Savin’ it up to earn some interest for the capital to open my business.” Noe turns to fiddle with one of the metal hoops adorning his friend’s ears, poking a finger into one. He only really does it because he knows well enough that Sho is sensitive when it comes to his ears, and the gesture has grown as a habit.

“Business…” Sho shakes his head, mocking.

“Your hair’s getting long. Want me to cut it?”

“Fuck no. And—” Sho snorts, swatting Noe’s hand away because the playful touches are starting to burn. He decides to change the topic before Noe starts insisting, knowing how the blonde gets when an idea warms up in his head. “You actually serious ’bout that gimmick?”

“It ain’t a gimmick.” Noe mewls, as if in pain at the way Sho jeers at his plans.

“It’s a lot of money. Could pay for university. Debt free ‘n all.” Sho commends, because the idea is rational and the discussion has been incubating around his tongue ever since Noe got called in by the insurance company. He wouldn’t of suggested it if he knew Noe didn’t have the potential. Not make it instantly big, per se, but at least have the capability to graduate. But now that it’s out in the open, it feels like a storm waiting to burst in his face. “Attend, I don’t know, Tokyo University? Waseda? Get that art degree and finally leave the rural life behind to become some hotshot artist in Tokyo.”

Noe grins to himself, because he knows Sho well. Too well. Righteously speaks whatever is on his mind that, more often than not, merely scrapes some surface-level sense. No purpose other than to trigger. Just the same predictable, naive, ankle-deep logic. Never really thinks about it for the long run, the consequences of saying the ‘right‘ things. Knows that somewhere in that high horsed blabber, he’s feeling the first blooms of something he can’t take back despite the lack of emotional sense.

“Swank hotshot artist. All Gucci.” Noe plays along, coughing up a chuckle.

“Livin’ in the city, embracing the urban culture. Tacky as hell.” He fuels on, and Noe’s hand stops in his hair. “Ain’t even ’bout the exhibitions or the grind, man. Just the university experience, truth be told.”

Sho tries to simper through his teeth, the words morphing cotton in his mouth as the thought of Noe in Tokyo sashays into his peripheral like a vision. Caught amidst the crowds he’ll draw in, just like always, charming as ever and fluttering like the free spirit he’s born to be. Far from the pseudo tropical bayside of Ishigaki and the measly days baking under the sodium infused rays with his best friend who’s maybe fucking infatuated with him. Almost two thousand kilometers out of reach. Away.

His own words leave a burn between his gums and corrodes the corners of his mouth, and it’s foreign. Because the sting spells more sentimental than what they’ve established. More like a loss, rather than a gain and having your best partner in crime make it big in the capital.

Sho doesn’t miss the forlorn twinkle beneath those veiny eyelids. “Tokyo University’s not Puroland, Sho-tan. It ain’t that easy.”

“I know,” He says, because he’s not about to change his mind just because he’s starting to feel like a sissy under his skin. Nods, once, and then tilts his head back only to find out that Noe is already staring at him with something else. Almost like the warmth boiling in his own stomach. He feels the gaze, searing. So incredibly warm that he feels the air glow between them. There’s a new era extending past the words exchanged. “But with you it is.”

“Gay.” Noe sings, giggles and sheers off the first bud of irritation under Sho’s temples when his hands cup the raven’s face. “Who are you?”

“Your long lost common sense,” Sho snaps, forcing his face out of those prickling fingers. “Some pipe reverie, sure, but. It— it doesn’t have to be.”

“Sho–”

“I don’t believe in a lot of shit but like — I feel it, man. I know. It’s you.”

Noe giggles. A breathy sound. “I’m touched, dude.”

“I’m fuckin’ serious, man. Think about it.”

“Thinkin’.”

Sho clicks his tongue, drags his hand across Noe’s thigh to ground him. Back in the muggy kitchen, and to actually think. If he wants this. This routine of being stuck here for the next twenty years, fifty, until he’s as saggy as missus Minako downstairs. If it’s enough. His fingers tingle, the skin’s damp with sweat. A vibrating heat under his touch, rich tan a contrast to Sho’s pale hand despite the sun’s proximity. There’s a shudder, almost too subtle to notice if it weren’t for the fact that he’s already so hyper aware of Noe’s every exhale.

“Who even reads paperback these days? It’s all about online sites and apps now. Renta and Webtoon and all that.”

Noe scoffs, fingers brushing Sho’s own on his thigh. Something in his eyes glimmer. Or maybe it’s just the golden hour casting its spell. “Renta doesn’t offer iced americanos.”

“That’s cause Renta’s not some hentai host club.”

“Fuck you. It’s a manga café.” The all too familiar dip between Noe’s eyebrows furrow, frustrated, lets the bottle clank against the drain of the sink and grabs some strands at the back of Sho’s head. Tugs. “Ain’t just about the cheap, easy money, man. You’d never know since you’re so caught up in the lousy shit.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you’re lousy.” Noe sounds sure, and Sho tries not to look offended.

“Am not fuckin’ lousy.” Sho beetles, boyish and anything but the character he’s trying to pull, much to his chagrin. “I’m just telling you. Maybe it’s time to embrace modernity. Digital. Easy to read. And I just like, well…”

It hangs in the air.

“Cartoon dicks on LCD?” Noe finishes for him, head titling back to rest against the metal grills. The sun clings and scorches his grin, and he lets it.

“Asshole,” There’s a type of sting, an itch, trying to climb up his throat as he watches a stranded breeze riffle through the light strands of Noe’s hair. Eyes closed, neck glistening. Hell on earth. “Fuckin’ don’t. Don’t start again with that bulls–”

“Whatever. Your masculinity won’t disintegrate in five seconds talkin’ ’bout dudes taking it up the–”

“Shut up.”

Noe laughs, deep and rasped up from all the rat poison he’s been inhaling. Sho gives him twenty more years until the lung cancer catches up.

He hacks up between his giggling and Sho whistles. Make that ten.

“Virgin.”

Sho scoffs, leans back on his chair to peer up at Noe with a mask of disinterest. Still, his pulse stutters all the same. “Don’t pull that shit. We both know I’m sexually proficient.”

Noe rolls his eyes, coy smile fiddling with Sho’s composure. “Gay. Virgin.”

“Am not gay, is all.”

“You’re, like, the gayest dude I know.”

“Jesus Christ, man.”

Sho can feel Noe’s heavy gaze on him, and his body is positively thrumming. Skin and nerves a form of live wire as he swallows down his own raging pulse. The fingers in his hair tighten, titling his head back so he stares square at Noe who’s sparing him a look. One that spells he knows more than he lets on. “You really think that rookie in Yuji’s band can keep his mouth shut?”

Something shifts.

Sho can’t discern if it’s an imperceptible earthquake rattling the old building, or if it’s just his world tilting on its axis now that the seemingly casual words are out in the open.

“Wh—?” It settles. Sinks. “Oh. Motherfucker.” Sho hisses under his breath when the realization hits him like a sharp clobber would — and some part of him does wish someone would just sucker punch him instead of dealing with this right now — eyes closing because goddamnit, Jiro. He should have known.

He makes a quick mental note to give a solid stink eye next time he catches that loose-mouthed idiot, or maybe a swift jab on the ribs if he’s feeling extra petty. Merciless and acute, just like how his Pa taught him how to gut. Jiro should see it coming, because that experience wasn’t up for outsider discussion and yet here’s his conspicuous best friend getting all excited about it.

The lingering obscenity hardens and chips under the dead air like crisp paint, loose between their mouths and the sticky atmosphere. A sort of confession on his part. Sho doesn’t want to open his eyes. Doesn’t really want to see Noe looking smug and beaming like he’s won something because he just knows that’s absolutely gonna be the case.

“Tell me what ‘s like.” Noe pipes up. Like a kid. All excited and shit after they’ve more or less marinated Sho’s dirty little secret.

“Huh?”

“Your first gay encounter, Sho-tan.” Noe nudges him, not relenting. Especially with Sho looking so choked. “Dude’s pisser in your mouth.”

“Don’t— god, can you not fucking say that word again—”

“Sho.”

“You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?” He wishes Noe could just shut up for once in his life. Limits. Gotta have ’em. But Noe—

Noe’s never learned the concept of knowing where to stop. Always curious. Radiating shameless energy, and all his unabashed idiosyncrasy. Always piping like some erratic prepubescent.

“C’mon. Humor me.”

Sho wants to fold himself inside the sun chair and bake in there for a few solid minutes, because damn it. Damn Noe and his irresistible wonder. It’s not really something Sho can ignore, a fact that he’s more ashamed than proud of, really. He could try to steel himself up, but some quaint part of him knows he’ll eventually bend when it comes to Noe. Just knows.

“What more do you need to know?” Sho sighs, voice flat, fingers pinching his nose bridge. “S’not like you haven’t had dicks in your mouth.”

Noe grins, full teeth on show. Ignores the last part like it was never said out loud in the first place. The thickest of skins. “Did’ya like it?”

Sho acts like he doesn’t hear it the first time it escapes his mouth. “Huh?”

“Did you like it? Getting fucked in the face by your crush?” He looks genuinely curious, a lilt to his tone, the grime in his words sounding angelic. Serious. Oh, he means business. Specifically his best friend’s business.

“I don’t have a crush on Jiro.”

“Sure,” Noe snorts, smirk sticky and sweet. “Answer my question, Sho. D’ya like it?”

“Mh. I don’t know—not really.”

“Give me a solid answer, man. You goin’ all soft or something? You sound like a virgin.” Noe chimes the last word, mocking as it sits shining between them, refusing to look away from Sho who’s growing more flustered by the second. Something neither of them are used to.

“God— it was fairish. And there was no ‘face fucking’ that ensued. Jiro wasn’t a conscious pick.” Sho relents. “It felt wrong. Taboo. It felt like giving damn Yuji head.”

Noe sits up, clapping his hands like he has been thinking the same exact thing.

“Is what I said, man! Like, really — Jiro? Fuckin’ Jiro? I know you have a cute lil’ crush on the guy, but really?” He’s whining, fingers in his temples as if he can’t wrap his head around the fact that Sho had the audacity to pick Jiro out of all the willing men he could have at his feet. Something about it makes the atmosphere shift. Again. He just knows how to sound to get Sho biting back a simper, torso bending down to level his stare.

Sho licks his bottom lip, the words Then who would’ve been a better bet? You? gurgling somewhere lodged in his throat. He grins, because Noe looks betrayed, and yet at the same time triumphant with how he’s eyeing him down. Mirth swirling, swimming somewhere in his gaze.

“I was high as shit off my stool from trying Yuji’s new, gimmicky variant of white magic. That’s only why I did it. I felt like I was floating,” Sho says, tilting his head back to lean on Noe’s outstretched leg. “He was there grinning at a wall ‘nd I was feeling frisky.”

Noe scoffs. “Your idea of frisky is giving subpar head?”

“Stop being a bitch,” Sho grouses, eyes narrowing. “And how would you know?”

“Know what?”

“That my head game’s subpar.”

Noe gives it a second to digest, looks mulish more than anything. Gives Sho’s bottom lip a quick flick of his pinky. “It’s not hard to guess— was your first time, wasn’t it? Hot ass under the influence? Damn. I’m surprised you haven’t bitten poor Jiro’s dick off–”

“Fuck you.” Sho tuts, bristling, pushes Noe’s legs back like a brat.

“I don’t doubt your head giving capabilities, but you were high. And, well, inexperienced.” Noe giggles. “Mari was going off about how the guy was traumatized.”

“What? Since when did Mari get involved in this?”

“They’re, like, sort of a thing these days.” Noe shrugs. “Jiro and Mari.”

“Fuckin’ Mari and her mouth. Always spewing up some type of shit. Can’t believe you buy that sleazy comment.” Sho glares, icy, and Noe’s momentarily relieved that looks can’t kill. “I can’t believe you trust that sleazy Mari.”

“Don’t say that.”

Sho furrows his eyebrows, hissing. “Whose side are you even fucking on?”

“I’m on your side. Always.” His hand is back on Sho’s piercings, playing with them to ease the glare trying to melt his skin off. “But you know how possessive Mari gets. She’s practically in love with the guy.”

The statement feels like a whack to Sho’s face. The unexpected word thrown into that innocent sentence yanks at his chest, heart thundering.

“Doesn’t matter,” He huffs, petty scowl faltering against his friend’s stare that’s starting to wolf him down. “She’s just running her mouth to make me look like a dick.”

“But it came out of your own mouth, man. You were on the bubble.”

“Your point? I’ve gotten enough head to know what the fuck to do.” He bites back. “Mari and her bullshit.”

“Brat.”

“My mouth’s got game.” The raven grumbles, makes it a point to look at Noe with conviction. “Jiro was just too out of it to appreciate it.”

Noe scoffs. “Can’t believe you act like a dipshit when I get all gay, but sucked an underground band’s drudge off.”

“It was one time.”

“Gay.” Noe’s grinning through his giggling, eyes squinting down at Sho and it’s too much. Too damn much to keep Sho from falling off of the edge.

“Shut up, you dick.”

“I can, like, teach you. Or something,” The suggestion is an uncharacteristically choppy mumble. Noe bites his lip, a sudden bashful trace in his tone. “Only if you’d like to, though.”

“I— what?” Sho’s mind crashes. Buffers. Searches for a signal. He chokes when all he gets is Noe sitting there looking pretty, regarding him with interest. “You mean I’ll practice on a banana while you coach me? Or am I missing something here?”

If Noe is in any way affected, he doesn’t let it show. “This is just me pitching that we work best as a team. And that I’ve always been the–”

“Get to the fucking point, Fujisaki.”

“Ugh.” There’s an embarrassed edge to the blonde’s groan, but Sho doesn’t let it bloom in his head, let it mean something more. He can’t afford such headassery. Noe sits himself up, serious, ready for business. The carefree words are said so blatantly it almost lodges the unreleased oxygen further down Sho’s lungs. “Use me. And I’ll be brutally honest with how good you can work your mouth.”

“Basically, you want a free blowjob so you can grade me?” Sho deadpans.

“I don’t mind sucking you off too,” The blonde grins, an easy nonchalance in his demeanor that chokes Sho from the inside out. “To demonstrate and shit.”

“You’re shameless.”

“I’m just trying to help,” Noe shrugs, all casual. No salt. He giggles, and something in Sho’s guts stir. “So far your reputation’s not that great, with a sad two out of ten.”

“Who gave me that damn score?”

“Mari.”

The little shit.

“Fuck. It was just a blowjob.” Sho sighs, heaves all the stress and traces of agitation that Noe’s mouth is working out of him. Tries to find his rationality without losing his mind. Maybe his mouth too, if he’s not careful and he agrees out of being starved of something he didn’t know he wanted in the first place. “Listen, I’m not— I don’t need to prove myself to them. Especially not to that threatened little—”

“Damn, okay. It’s just an idea — what are you getting worked up for?” Noe laughs, the sound thick and foxy, tilting his head back as if to mock Sho’s worked up flush. “I’m not forcing you into anything, Sho-tan. It’s just an activity I’d be down for.”

“Shut up,” The blush heating up his face nearly feels like it’s clogging his skin up, and he prays Noe doesn’t notice how worked up he really is getting. “And I don’t want to make things fucking awkward.”

Noe pops one button on his shirt open to ease the clammy heat, the fabric damp with sweat, translucent from how the sunlight beams through the thin material. Sho practically has to force his gaze away, zeroing on the discolored, water-damaged ceiling instead, swallowing heavily.

“I don’t see how giving head can make things awkward,” The blonde cocks his head, genuinely baffled. “We’re like, the two sides of a coin. You watch rented, retro adult films with me. Gay porn. And you’re, like, partially homophobic.”

“I’m not homophobic — you know what? That makes no sense because I tolerate you with no problem.”

“My point is,” Noe tuts, rolling his eyes as if the words don’t make the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes trained on his friend’s avoidant gaze. “We’re both compatible. Regardless of what it is we’re talking about.”

“I— fuck, I’m not gay.”

“It might be a good shared experience.” He shrugs, as if the act wouldn’t mean anything at all. As if it wouldn’t change the trajectory of their lives if they ever dared to give themselves the chance. “At the end of the day, it’s just good ol’ head, bro.”

“Yeah, right.” Sho scoffs. “Said the guy who seduces men in his free time. You avoided me like the plague for two weeks the first time I found out you were casually sleeping with that regular who hated your guts—”

“Who?”

“Yu-something.”

“That was like, what, four years ago? We’re over that phase.” Noe laughs, looks at Sho with a subtle sheen of surprise. “Has sex always been this big of a deal to you?”

A muscle somewhere in his jaw ticks at the question, just beneath the subconsciously clenched teeth.

“No, I— you know it’s not that.”

“Unless…” Sho feels his whole body pulse when Noe suddenly leans in. “…you’re scared of catching feelings?”

Sho’s at a loss for words. He literally feels his heart stutter, roll off of the sun chair and spill onto the floor. The way Noe is looking at him nearly makes him doubt for a second if he can actually see it too. Feel how real this unnamed thing between them is becoming.

“But I highly doubt you’d be the type.”

Of course, Sho’s not the type to catch feelings after sex. It’s not that that he’s worried about, but the underlying possibility that there are already unknown feelings that have started to fester before the act itself, one that could trigger something he’s not sure he’s ready for.

“Well, whatever.” Noe sighs, stretches like he didn’t just offer himself on the table to be swallowed. Literally. “Just know that the offer’s open. Whenever you’re not in your bitchy homophobe mood.”

That playful jab snaps Sho back into the room, into his body that’s barely fitting in the hot, dingy kitchen where their folded up forms always seem to find each other. For a second, he just lets his heart race. Lets the moment mean something more.

“Okay, you need to go.” Sho straightens, hardens his tone so the cracks don’t shine through. “Am not indulgin’ you with this conversation anymore, Noe.”

“I can almost feel the gears in your head starting to consider.”

“Get out of the fuckin’ sink.” He can’t help the smirk that curls over his softened features, yet still stubbornly, pathetically sporting the same facade that’s deteriorating faster than the tenement’s outside walls against the salt infused pacific breeze. He’s Sho, after all. Noe’s missing piece, in some twisted, devoted way. “Your shift’s in a quarter.”

“Look who’s being a bitch now,” The blonde easily matches his smirk, gracefully sliding off the kitchen counter, makes the movement as slow and deliberate as possible just because he can. “It’s twenty-nineteen, my man. It’s fabulous to be gay. Just embrace it.”

“Fuck off.” The words end up sounding more fond than he intended. “And think about what I said. ‘Bout taking a shot with Tokyo.” They both sober up, their bodies stilling. The breeze sifting through the grills brushes against their cheeks, eases a heat that’s been growing more burning for a while now. “It’s not gonna bite you in the ass.”

“And being homo wouldn’t bite you.” Noe counters, sticky and cloy, before he’s skipping off back into his room with a glare glued onto the back of his bleached strands. He winks. “Unless you’re into that.”

Sho’s losing his mind. Maybe his heart.

And maybe he’s already lost it down the drain where his best friend was just sitting at, never to be found again unless he has the balls to dig around for it.

(But Sho has never been the type to look for parts of himself that he loses.

And Noe knows this for a fact.)

Heatwave

2019

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